Erotomania
by Aliathe
Summary: There is a rabbit. There is an impostor. And there is Sakura. This is how the story goes. [au] [one-shot]


**Summary:**

 _I love Sasuke-kun. I really do. That's why I had to kill him, see? See?_ _See?_ _Ah, well, if you can't, then you can't. Soon you won't have eyes to see with. [AU One-shot]_

 **Disclaimer:**

 _I don't own Naruto, or the cover picture._

* * *

" _Sakura?"_

 _Ignore the impostor._

 _Surely it is an impostor._

 _I know Sasuke-kun, and he would definitely never do anything like this._

 _He wouldn't desert Konoha, he wouldn't desert me._

 _The impostor must have taken his spot somehow, banishing him away._

 _Only an impostor would try to kill me, because Sasuke-kun loves me loves me lovesmelovesmeloves-_

 _Me._

.

Ino thinks I've gone a bit _wonky_ since the impostor left.

I laughed at her.

She cares for me as well, I can see that now.

(She fears me, too, that little ring of chilled blue in her pretty eyes, although of course she won't admit it, even to herself.

Why should she?

She does not know this fear, does not know why she should fear her long-familiar comrade, she does not know why and when human do not know something, they tend to dismiss it.

Repress it.

Survival instincts.)

I can see that now, can see that with our 'rivalry' out of the way.

For her, it's over because 'he' left.

For me, it's because I know it wasn't 'he' who left.

She was concerned after I laughed, and tried to tell Tsunade-shishou.

It was fine, though.

I convinced her I was just a bit shaken, and avoided her when I could.

Ino knows me the longest; even as rivals we'd first been friends, and if anyone could tell my plans, it'd be her.

She's always known of my… less socially acceptable tendencies, I believe, ever since she saw me that day in the little copse of trees behind the Academy, carefully carving up Ami's precious widdle bunny.

But who knows?

It was years ago, years and years and years.

Maybe she's forgotten it, as a a wisp, a false memory, a strange dream.

Surely Haruno Sakura isn't the type to go around skinning the pets of her offenders.

Surely.

.

It's all very simple, though.

The impostor drove away Sasuke-kun.

They've fooled everyone else.

So I just have to remove the impostor, and Sasuke-kun will come back, and we'll all be _happy_ again.

Tsunade-shishou is starting to think something's up with me, lately.

Probably Ino.

And I can't even really be mad at her.

I understand where she's coming from.

Ino might be thinking that _I'm_ an impostor.

I _have_ been acting differently, haven't I?

Awfully sloppy of me.

It won't do to have people suspicious that I may not be entirely _together_.

Like Ami's rabbit.

.

Nobody noticed me much; me and my forehead at age 5-6-7.

The most of a reputation that I had was as a cripplingly shy, silent girl who answered every test question correct and completed every bit of extra-credit paperwork.

When Ami's rabbit showed up at her doorstep, dried flakes painting it's pelt pink, cleanly broken neck, eyes missing and it's mouth a jagged eternal grin, Ami had screamed loudly enough to rouse the rooster in her civilian neighborhood.

It was blamed on the class outcast at the time, even though Naruto's shtick had never been intentionally malicious, and he'd barely interacted with anyone, preferring to quietly sulk at the back of the room as the teacher ignored his entire existence, except to give him too-hard questions that only Shikamaru stood a chance of answering.

But he'd had a bad reputation.

So it was pinned on him.

That taught a valuable lesson to the equally quiet girl lurking in the other corner of the back.

Reputation is as good as, if not better than, an alibi.

People form preconceptions all the time.

They're surprisingly stubborn about keeping them, too.

Useful.

.

" _You're crazy."_

 _Scowl, sigh._

 _Why is that always the first line that people say when captured?_

 _I didn't even tell it anything._

 _Not that I would._

 _No need to waste words on an impostor._

" _Insane. What happened to you, Sakura?"_

 _It's funny, kinda._

 _I never thought the impostor would a be a talking-type when faced with death._

 _Just one more point of proof he isn't Sasuke-kun._

 _Sasuke-kun wouldn't ask her anything._

 _He wouldn't talk to her, actually._

 _That's okay, though, because she knows he really really really loves her, and he's just afraid of other's finding out, and she can respect that wish, no matter how much he denied their relationship in public or private or whatever whichever._

 _Really, he should be pleased that she invented a new jutsu especially for removing the impostor._

 _A neat three-step trick with medical chakra, lightning chakra, and a personal poison._

 _Fry the neurons, chakra-locking poison, scramble the brain into mush._

 _Maybe he'd be so pleased that he'd finally acknowledge their love._

 _She can wait._

 _She's waited so long already._

 _The impostor's chakra-locked and bound with razor wire; she planned this carefully, very carefully._

 _Enough time to plan the world away._

 _Almost time for the next step._

 _She has to make sure the impostor is removed for good._

 _Almost…_

 _._

Naruto doesn't know what's bothering me, but he does know that I'm bothered.

He means well.

That's his personality.

Bright and cheerful and determined.

So different from that quietly sulking child.

I wonder if he remembers the rabbit incident, even as I fondly smack his shoulder and play out the reassuring daily charade, the motions and words coming as easily as breathing.

Naruto means well, yes.

He means so well that he can't see flaws in those he's claimed as his friends.

That kind of loyalty is a bit frightening to me.

Can I ever achieve something like that, for anyone other than Sasuke-kun?

No, I remind myself, no I can't, and why should I try?

Sasuke-kun is the only one I need.

Naruto's nice, but I never needed him, even as he needed me.

I've found my person to love, my reason for living.

He hasn't yet, and he's still looking.

Ino doesn't need me, and Kakashi-sensei has, I think, lose his reason for living a while back, but not his person to love, not completely.

Never much of a sensei, either.

Only thing he taught us was that, as much as one might say otherwise, teams are both the most overrated and underestimated force in the ninjaverse.

… It's a pretty good lesson to have taught, if one were to only learn one thing.

.

 _The impostor is removed._

 _Frying one's neurons is an effective death sentence by itself._

 _Smashing it's brains and systematically ripping it apart to dispose of the body are simply safety measures._

 _It's moonlight skin rubs cool against my slick fingers and quicksilver knife._

 _Not quite snowy fur tufting crusty with blood, but close enough._

 _I pull out it's eyes and crush them underfoot, burying the remains like the rabbit-eyes rotting behind the Academy._

 _Let the worms have them._

 _Crushing and burying the rest of the pieces is the work of a minute, and I returns to the cave to wait for Sasuke-kun's return._

 _That's what happens, right?_

 _The impostor is removed, the rightful prince comes, and I can have my happily-ever-after._

 _But Sasuke-kun doesn't come._

 _Worried now, I check on where I buried the impostor's companions, shining my blade just in case._

 _Sasuke-kun's not there either._

 _I wait, and wander, and wait some more, and wonder, until I can't wait anymore._

 _It's irony at it's finest when, out of a contingent of ANBU, it's the rabbit-masked one that breaks my neck._

 _It's not a clean break, though, not as clean of a break as the one I made at 6._

 _I live just long enough to see that Sasuke-kun never came._

.

In the end, it is Ino who knows me best.

She confronts me near the gates with naught but her suspicions and pleads.

It reminds me of the confrontation between the imposter and I, before he left and I realized he wasn't Sasuke-kun.

Well, not exactly.

She brings her techniques as well, for what good they do against Inner.

Inner is lacking separate sentience now, just a mental shield.

Still, Inner is a very effective mental shield.

One of the best.

Ino is not one of the best yet.

Her techniques are all rendered null.

It is easy to knock her out.

I say "thank you" and she falls asleep.

Unlike the first confrontation, she does not wake up the next day.

She will never wake up again.

I really did mean that "thank you", for the Ino who never told on Sakura the rabbit-killer.

Perhaps she was too frightened to tell, and grew up and forgot.

She still never told.

.

 _And now she definitely can't._

* * *

 ** _#_**

 ** _#_**

 _Erotomania, simplified, is the delusion that someone (usually of a higher status) loves you. This Sakura has issues, and only one of them is erotomania._

 ** _#_**

 ** _#_**


End file.
